China has been addressing the reality that unmanned operations will be the way forward and its early decision to make 5G widely available has resulted in a different trajectory from the rest of the world. With large-scale 5G application development working towards 70,000 private 5G networks, 5G development in China is poised to be a global change catalyst. On a different scale, the implications for global economies of viable, large-scale solutions being developed in a comparatively lower cost-based market are undeniable. The consequence will be more efficient competition that will impact global economies. If embracing Chinese technology is not an option, the one lesson that the rest of world must takeaway is how things can be done differently to push for greater progress.
A wider adoption of 5G, that goes beyond just the innovators and early adopters, is being achieved by lowering barriers to entry. The difference within the Chinese context is the government push and that mobile operators have skin in the game. Being deeply invested takes collaborative efforts to the next level, with the mobile operator seeking avenues to drive ROI alongside enterprises. This approach enables enterprises to quantify return on investment (ROI) for 5G in large-scale projects, a key challenge for enterprises, to happen while experimenting in solution development and new business models for monetization. Connectivity must bring businesses online to modernize operations. This approach has helped enterprises achieve the organizational and business-model adaptation needed to reimagine and implement new models that fully leverage 5G’s potential. This is a critical development supporting enterprise digital transformation.
The Shanghai Metro, the largest in the world, spanning over 1,000 km and the third busiest globally, serving over 10 million commuters daily, is a unique example of China Mobile’s determination to make it work. Initiated in June 2024 and completed in May 2025, it is arguably the fastest private 5G network deployment for a metro system, even though the original plan was to cover all 21 lines and 517 stations within the first six months. The rapid pace was driven by the need to overcome escalating operational costs caused by inefficiencies, the need for better safety control mechanisms, and the inability to drive revenue beyond the regulated metro transit fee.
The Shanghai Metro needed to ensure high operational reliability across large-scale equipment and facilities. However, poor visibility in tunnels and a short maintenance window of only 3–4 hours in the early morning made rapid fault identification and rectification difficult. It needed to improve daily inspection efficiency without additional manpower as metro lines continued to grow. To make matters worse, high passenger volumes during peak hours threatened passenger safety and negatively affected wait times, especially for the elderly and disabled. The existing passenger information system (PIS) was outdated and could not support real-time updates, advertising, or video streaming capabilities.
The communications technology baseline was Wi-Fi with its inherent interference due to use of public spectrum, terrestrial trunked radio (TETRA) which is limited due to its narrowband technology and 4G LTE that is not optimized for mission critical services. Without 5G, automation to reduce costs, mission critical service capability to improve security services and avenues to improve customer experience and drive new customer monetization models were prohibitive.
Key innovation driven by China Mobile has been in connectivity, positioning, and automation, enabled by the LampSite X for high-capacity 5G Advanced indoor coverage and the Easy Macro solution for tunnels from Huawei Technologies. The Easy Macro solution reduces construction costs by 47% from US$170,000 to US$90,000 and network construction timeline from 120 days to 45 days compared to the traditional remote radio unit (RRU) and leaky cable approach.
- Connectivity – Mission-critical services are enabled with 5G mission critical push to talk (MCPTT) for emergency response reducing emergency response time from minutes to seconds. Customer experience is improved with broadband speeds of up to 3 Gbps (downlink) and 500 Mbps (uplink), reducing buffering for streaming services such as Migu Video, a China Mobile subsidiary. Annual revenue for China Mobile is expected to increase by US$7 million, with PIS driving advertising revenue by 20% year on year (YoY) and Migu driving new subscriptions and monetization of copyrighted NBA content. It is important to note here that this revenue is going towards the recovery of China Mobile’s investment in Shanghai Metro.
- Positioning – With 5G, round-trip time-of-arrival algorithms tuned for tunnel propagation offer 1–3-meter accuracy at stations and 3–10 meter accuracy in tunnels. With positioning and status monitoring capability, metro system efficiency is increased by 30% YoY through improved scheduling to match passenger load and ability to predict fault location for predictive maintenance.
- Automation – With better connectivity, positioning and status monitoring using big data analysis (e.g., vehicle status, power supply systems, driver monitoring), enable an intelligent scheduling system that automates emergency response, metro scheduling, and routine operations. Multi-band coordination that uses both the 2.6GHz and 4.9 GHz bands to increase capacity and enable dynamic resource scheduling using dedicated resources is a key component that facilitates these functionalities for Shanghai Metro. This results in peak rates 2–3 times higher than public 5G networks and a 90% increase in average daily network traffic. With remote visual intelligent inspection capability enabled, daily inspection time is reduced from 3 hours to 30 minutes.
Shanghai Metro, with China Mobile’s support, has achieved a major milestone by creating the foundation for a fully automated smart metro system. Robotics and redundancy to enable 24/7 operations are being deployed. Its management is reducing dependency on manpower and will be reskilling and redeploying existing drivers. China Mobile plans to expand its smart metro framework globally from 2026 and is already driving adoption across other Chinese metro systems, including Wuhan, Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Beijing.
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